Georgette Heyer Fans discussion

Footsteps in the Dark was Georgette Heyer's first mystery and she did not love it--but plenty of her fans disagree! I have yet to read it, but I understand that it features plenty of Heyer's trademark witty dialog, along with four young amateur detectives, hidden passageways and other Gothic flourishes.

For those following on e-readers, this thread in our group discussion ends with the following sentence: "He took her hand, looked at it for a moment and kissed it." And did I mention there might be a little romance?

I'm not reading along with you - too much other stuff to read at the moment - but I've been prompted to re-read my review. (I read all the mysteries in chronological order in 2011). Not Heyer's best, not much of a mystery, but still worth the read! I'll be reading the group read discussion with interest.

Thanks Kim! Feel free to chime in with your thoughts any time.

I found most of these chapters boring and don't even remember what happened, but I had a hard time stopping by the time I got to Ch. 10.

Yes, you are right--the pace is definitely picking up.

I just finished Ch. 10 and I'm finding it very amusing. There is no shortage of odd characters, and in fact no shortage of suspects and it's rather fun to try and guess what is going on.

Mr. Strange and the 'commercial gentleman' who seems willing to vacuum an entire manse to sell one of his new models are rather too obvious. If this were one of GH's Regency romances I'd assume the commercial gent was a Bow Street Runner.

Meanwhile, I'm rather keen on knowing why the taproom has such an enormous electrical generator.

Margaret and Celia unfortunately both seem TSTL.

And does anyone know how to pronounce Mrs. Bosanquet's last name???? I have a feeling it's NOT Beau-san-kay....

Any theories about who the monk is and what's behind the haunting?

You asked: And does anyone know how to pronounce Mrs. Bosanquet's last name???? I have a feeling it's NOT Beau-san-kay....

A family where I grew up had that name and pronounced it Bo-san-get. I'm sure it has lots of variations!

Thanks, Mary!

Every time I encountered Mrs. Bosanquet I found myself thinking of Hyacinth Bucket in the BBC comedy Keeping Up Appearances--Hyacinth always insisted that her last name be pronounced 'Bouquet'!

Hana wrote: "Thanks, Mary!

Every time I encountered Mrs. Bosanquet I found myself thinking of Hyacinth Bucket in the BBC comedy Keeping Up Appearances--Hyacinth always insisted that her last name be pronounce..."

LOL! I have always mentally pronounced Aunt Lilian's name as Bo-san-ket.

I have a question about the electrical plant unrelated to the book -- what were these type of generators run on? Coal? Kerosene or propane?

Good question, Leslie. My grandparents' very old furnace ran on coal, but that was in the US. Actually, come to think of it, in 1930 in Britain it was probably coal as well, likely mined in Wales.

The whole electrical plan thing confused and bored me. It does have relevance later on though. I was mostly interested in the secret passageway and who dropped the skull. I love Mr. Titmarsh and for all his incompetence, Constable Flinders.

I knew by the end of Ch. 5 that The Monk was human. Ghosts fly THROUGH you and you'd know it. I never really thought it was a real ghost but I wasn't sure. By the end of Ch. 7 I couldn't put it down. I had to know what Mr. Fripp was up to. GH really excelled at writing foolish characters.

The introduction of Duvall hooked me. He seems out of place in a GH story. What's dope in the 1930s? Cocaine?

Margaret is an idiot. Celia is TSTL but Margaret is a plain old idiot. She's fallen in love with a stranger!

I want Mr. Fripp to come and vacuum my manse--call me any time, Frippy, old chap!

Good distinction on levels of female idiocy, Qnpoobear :D

*heads off to research drugs of abuse in England between the wars*

I love Google!!!

This BBC article details a hundred years of changing British attitudes and laws on drugs. Britain fought two wars to keep opium legal, so they were apparently not too keen to stop the traffic and even as late at WW1 both opium and cocaine were legal. Licensing laws were tightened in 1915 and drug use came to be viewed as a 'foreign' threat to the war effort--which fits with Duval being French. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-1668...

The article doesn't say much about how hard it was to get drugs even after the laws were tightened. My uneducated guess from Duval's personality (and the weird paintings) is that he's on opium, not cocaine.

On the other hand, here's an article on the history of cocaine. I had no idea! http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/...

Either way, Duval's days would seem to be numbered. The art world will never be the same :D

Hana wrote: "Thanks, Mary!

Every time I encountered Mrs. Bosanquet I found myself thinking of Hyacinth Bucket in the BBC comedy Keeping Up Appearances--Hyacinth always insisted that her last name be pronounce..."

Me, too, Hana! "The Bookaaaaay residence. The lady of the house speaking." And every time that I pass a dog who barks unexpectedly at me, I'm afraid that I'm going to do a Hyacinth and land in a shrub or a fence.

I'm so glad to find another 'Keeping up Appearances' fan! So do you have 'room for a pony' at your estate? I do, in theory; it's called the Boston Common and Hyacinth wouldn't hesitate to claim it. http://nchchonors.org/wp-content/uplo...

And don't you love Daisy and Onslow (I am completely surrounded by NO BEER)? :D

I think Daisy and Onslow are at least as good as Hyacinth. Their house kills me, that tv flickering in the background all of the time.

Hmmmmm. My husband has been known to say, "Why am I surrounded by NO BEER?" Does that make me Daisy?

I'm going to have to tell everyone I have room for a pony and see what kind of reactions I get...

I read this book years ago, and might have forgotten it but there was a reference to in the biography which gave away one twist, and I think I'm remembering at least some of the rest.

I found it difficult to get into this time, and the characters still haven't really come to life for me in the way GH's usually do. The book's grown on me a bit as it goes on, but I still feel that I don't really know any of the characters, with the possible exception of Margaret.

Am I right in thinking that GH hasn't described what any of the four living in the house look like? I think that helps me get hold of them. I can't tell whether Charles cares at all for Celia; he doesn't seem to. She won't leave him in danger, but he really doesn't seem to show any affection for her, less than Peter does in looking after Margaret (his sister).

The only one I'm interested in isn't one of them, it's Michael Strange! (What an annoying name, too.)

I have been pronouncing the aunt's name as Boze-an-kay.

HJ, you are right about the lack of descriptions--and I agree that the personalities are not as well-defined as GH's usual.

Charles and Celia are always sniping at each other, but I've known more than one couple (including my grandparents) who did the same thing and actually loved each other dearly. If you're a Harry Potter fan like me, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley come to mind.

Are you thinking about the history of the house? The one with two pages torn out? Perhaps they included a map of the secret passages....

Funny you should mention your grandparents, Hana; I was 30 before I realized that my constantly bickering parents actually loved each other. It's not behavior I understand (and it drove my grandmother crazy, so I think I inherited her temperament), but I guess it worked for them.

But I think Charles' sarcasm hides his real regard for Celia, and she pretty much indulges him as she would a rather spoiled child she loves. They've apparently been married quite a while, so this is how they've settled into their life together.

I like your observation about how Celia indulges Charles. I also don't get that style of marriage (me, I'm all for the peaceful life), but it works for some people.

lol My grandparents drove me wild with the bickering, especially when we'd drive from NYC to the Jersey Shore and would have to listen to the constant sniping for two solid hours!

Hana wrote: "I like your observation about how Celia indulges Charles. I also don't get that style of marriage (me, I'm all for the peaceful life), but it works for some people.

lol My grandparents drove me w..."

My husband and I don't dare to even slightly disagree in front of our kids, because they get that remember-gramma-and-grampa look in their eyes. I remember one incident where we were visiting them, and they started arguing over the salt in the popcorn. I didn't know my kids' eyes could get that wide! Funny how things like that reach down the years!

Qnpoohbear wrote: "The whole electrical plan thing confused and bored me. It does have relevance later on though. I was mostly interested in the secret passageway and who dropped the skull. I love Mr. Titmarsh and fo..."

That was a giggle, Qnpoohbear! I didn't know what TSTL meant until I looked it up.

Yup! I had to look it up my first time, too. I assume some kid typing with thumbs on his 'smart' phone came up with it. TSTL is often all too true when it comes to romance heroines but it's cute.

Thank heavens for Google or we'd never be able to keep up with the kids.

A similar one is TL;DR which means "too long; didn't read". Useful when someone writes a solid block of text and half-way through you think: I just don't care what the rest of this says.

It sure keeps me from always looking out of the loop!

Hj wrote: "A similar one is TL;DR which means "too long; didn't read". Useful when someone writes a solid block of text and half-way through you think: I just don't care what the rest of this says."

Especially when it's tech stuff. I think I need "TL;DR;DC".

For extreme cases, where words are being used by a teenager in a way which is incomprehensible, Urban Dictionary can be useful. But I do not recommend it except when it is essential that you understand. There are some disturbing concepts and behaviour described on that site. Sometimes you're better off just not knowing!

Thanks HJ--a useful resource, and you make an excellent point about it being better not knowing (or maybe 'not intruding').

In the end, there is so little you can do. I'm reading John Adams; JA was an incredibly honest, caring, objective man, yet his daughter married a wastrel and his younger son was a drunkard. Adams' wife, Abigail, was just as loving and just as smart (and a lot more available than JA) but neither of them could save their children from their mistakes.

Karlyne wrote: "Hj wrote: "A similar one is TL;DR which means "too long; didn't read". Useful when someone writes a solid block of text and half-way through you think: I just don't care what the rest of this say..."

Oh this one is so right--I've done a few TL-DR posts in my late unlamented corporate days. I hope I'm cured, but of course I hate it when anyone else does it :D

Hana wrote: "Thanks HJ--a useful resource, and you make an excellent point about it being better not knowing (or maybe 'not intruding').

In the end, there is so little you can do. I'm reading [book:John Adams..."

It's the conundrum of life, isn't it? Why do so often "good people" have children that just... aren't. When I was younger I thought that there probably was some magic parenting that would work on all kids, but, although I've been amazingly "lucky" myself, I know that no such pill exists. Life- it's odd.

Some of the characters in this book keep using the word "ass." I'm surprised to find this in a book by GH since she was such a prude.

@Andrea, it's a sign of linguistic change. In GH's time and place, "ass" = "donkey" = "foolish person." Also, in Britain, the word you're thinking of is spelled (and pronounced) "arse".

I've read so many Heyer's, etc., that it's awfully tempting to tell people to not be an ass, but, as you note, Andrea, that's not done in polite society these days!

I agree with Margaret, it isn't rude as an 'ass' is a donkey over here. Although these days people probably wouldn't refer to a donkey as an ass as it's so well known that it's US equivalent of arse.

You will sometimes hear people saying 'you donkey' if someone has been a bit stupid, maybe it came from the type of sayings Heyer used :)

Now Peter has just said."god damn." I'm surprised that Sourcebooks hasn't censored this out. In another thread an earlier discussion I said that I had the feeling that they had tampered with the text. For example, Pelham from The Convenient Marriage says in my Sourcebooks edition "odd rot him." I'm sure this was supposed to be "god" and not "odd." So I'm surprised to see god damn in this edition by the same publisher. I'm not offended. I was just irritated by their censorship and I'm surprised to see any "god" references left in.

I suspect, actually, that "odd rot him" is historically correct; it would be the same sort of formation as "Ods bodkins" (basically, "God's little body").

It seems strange to me that when these folks found a human skeleton in their house that they just said that they would bury themselves. This seems irregular to me, even for the 1930s. Shouldn't the remains have been taken away by the authorities? I don't mean that absurd village Bobbie.

Andrea (Catsos Person) wrote: "It seems strange to me that when these folks found a human skeleton in their house that they just said that they would bury themselves. This seems irregular to me, even for the 1930s. Shouldn't t..."

That's what I thought too. Here in the present day U.S> you're supposed to notify authorities.

I thought it was odd that they didn't call the Vicar and have the bones buried honorably. If they didn't want him to know, because they didn't trust him, why didn't they call in another clergyman?

@Karlyne

An impression has been given that the poor fellow's remains were just thrown in a hole in the dirt.

The description of Margaret making a phone call on a pay phone was interesting . It sounded complicated. No dial. And only two pennies as the cost to place the call. Years ago, when I arrived at college from my home town, I was tickled that the cost of a call was fifteen cent--and with no time limits too!

Andrea (Catsos Person) wrote: "@Karlyne

An impression has been given that the poor fellow's remains were just thrown in a hole in the dirt.

The description of Margaret making a phone call on a pay phone was interesting . It so..."

I know! Even if you didn't know the bones, you'd think they'd have at least given them a proper burial! He was, after all, someone.

No dials, and always through an operator. It probably could get kind of flustering!

Well, I have completed the first half of the book. Here are my impressions:

1) Michael Strange (if this is his real name) keeps turning up on the grounds of the Priory bec he is investigating "the bad guys." Further, I don't think that he has seen enough of Margaret to be "in love" with her. Attracted yes, but not love.

2) I feel that the Colonel A. (Can't recall his name and can't look up since I am reading this in Kindle) is the "ringleader" of "the bad guys" and has the drunken French bad artist in his power and perhaps others in the village as well.

3) The drunken French bad artist is going to wind up dead because he knows too much and is a risk because of his substance makes him exercise poor judgement by talking to much and/or trying to blackmail the Colonel or whomever the ringleader is.

4) For the first time in her life, Margaret is experiencing feelings of attraction for a man--Michael Strange, but since this is new, she doesn't know what "it" is that she is experiencing.

5) In the beginning, I thought that the Aunt might be sensible until it became clear that she believes in the efficacy ouiji boards (I had to look up the word "planchette") to shed light on anything.

6) GH has overused the word "ass."

7) The Owner of the Inn "knows something" or may be involved bec he endures the Frenchman's disruptive, substance-induced behavior in his establishment bec the Frenchman is of use to the bad guys.

I just had to write this down so that I can refer to it when I complete the book.

I have not read any posts in this thread earlier than my own. I will go back and read them later.

I'm not going to say a word, Andrea...

Karlyne wrote: "I'm not going to say a word, Andrea..."

I'm just going to say wow!

Next time I need a mystery solved I'm calling Andrea! Seriously!!!:)

Hana wrote: "Next time I need a mystery solved I'm calling Andrea! Seriously!!!:)"

I agree!

Qnpoohbear wrote: "Karlyne wrote: "I'm not going to say a word, Andrea..."

I'm just going to say wow!"

Ditto! :)

Hana wrote: "Thanks, Mary!

Every time I encountered Mrs. Bosanquet I found myself thinking of Hyacinth Bucket in the BBC comedy Keeping Up Appearances--Hyacinth always insisted that her last name be pronounce..."

I thought of Hyachith Bucket also!